"Give me a child until he is 7, and I will give you the man."
Director Michael Apted has been revisiting the same group of 14 British-born adults every seven years for 56 years. It's a documentary achievement not ever before attempted. It succeeds magically.
His above thesis centers around the notion that at 7 years you can see the same person at 63. Well, maybe not fully, but their individual personalities come through as Apted flashes back to scenes from previous 7-year iterations, including the first in 1963 to let us see the growth of his engaging subjects.
Almost all participants have achieved some happiness, from laborer and mother to Oxford grads and barrister. Common to most of their happiness is children, as good an endorsement of having children as you will ever see. Yet, disappointments and tragedy follow them as well as impermanent happiness, as happens to all who walk this earth.
Apted smartly updates his take by asking questions about current life, such as Brexit or lack of opportunity to buy a home. It is obvious that their children are often staying home into maturity from their inability to buy. Even Tony, a real estate developer, is forced by 2008 to downsize.
Nick learns 10 days before Apted's arrival that he has lung cancer, and librarian Lynn has died from a playground accident. All in all, life has just moved on relentlessly to its inevitable conclusion.
Somehow Apted doesn't set us off into grim thoughts about the human condition; rather he celebrates the small moments of life that give joy and connect us all in common experiences. As his series seems to be coming to a close, we can enjoy watching cohesive parts of the lives we share with each other.
